Posted on 11/12/2012 2:41:49 PM PST by TaraP
That was under the original Texas Constitution.
Q: Doesn't the Texas Constitution reserve the right of Texas to secede?
A: This heavily popularized bit of Texas folklore finds no corroboration where it counts: No such provision is found in the current Texas Constitution[1] (adopted in 1876) or the terms of annexation.[2] However, it does state (in Article 1, Section 1) that "Texas is a free and independent State, subject only to the Constitution of the United States..." (note that it does not state "...subject to the President of the United States..." or "...subject to the Congress of the United States..." or "...subject to the collective will of one or more of the other States...")
Neither the Texas Constitution, nor the Constitution of the United States, explicitly or implicitly disallows the secession of Texas (or any other "free and independent State") from the United States. Joining the "Union" was ever and always voluntary, rendering voluntary withdrawal an equally lawful and viable option (regardless of what any self-appointed academic, media, or government "experts"—including Abraham Lincoln himself—may have ever said).
Both the original (1836) and the current (1876) Texas Constitutions also state that "All political power is inherent in the people ... they have at all times the inalienable right to alter their government in such manner as they might think proper."
Likewise, each of the united States is "united" with the others explicitly on the principle that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed" and "whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends [i.e., protecting life, liberty, and property], it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government" and "when a long train of abuses and usurpations...evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security." [3]
Good quotes indeed. Thanks
BS.
They have fresh hot sauce in the MRE's.
Thanks.
Yes
John Hancock would be so proud of some of us
Well said
What we are talking about here is CW II
It was probably around the time period that the States seceded from the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union.
This secession was mentioned later in the first legal treatise written after Constitutional Ratification.
And since the seceding states, by establishing a new constitution and form of federal government among themselves, without the consent of the rest, have shown that they consider the right to do so whenever the occasion may, in their opinion require it, as unquestionable, we may infer that that right has not been diminished by any new compact which they may since have entered into, since none could be more solemn or explicit than the first, nor more binding upon the contracting parties. Their obligation, therefore, to preserve the present constitution, is not greater than their former obligations were, to adhere to the articles of confederation; each state possessing the same right of withdrawing itself from the confederacy without the consent of the rest, as any number of them do, or ever did, possess.
Of the Several Forms of Government, St. George Tucker, View of the Constitution of the United States, Section XIII
You’re thinking with the wrong end of your body.
Then let the PROVE they want to change our country. They’re demonstrating they want to destroy it. Not overly harsh at all.
Thank you!
In addition, anyone saying the unCivil War changed this concept is mistaken. At least according to Joseph Story, the same who wrote the last View of the Constitution before it all hit the fan-
"The obvious deductions, which may be, and indeed have been drawn, from considering the Constitution as a Compact between the States, are, that it operates as a mere treaty, or convention between them, and has an obligatory force upon each State no longer than it suits its pleasure, or its consent continues;, that each State has a right to judge for itself in relation to the nature, extent, and obligations of the instrument, without being at all bound by the interpretation of the Federal Government, or by that of any other State; and that each retains the power to withdraw from the Confederacy, and to dissolve the connection, when such shall be its choice; and may suspend the operations of the Federal Government, and nullify its acts within its own territorial limits, whenever, in its own opinion, the exigency of the case may require. These conclusions may not always be avowed; but they flow naturally from the doctrines which we have under consideration. They go to the extent of reducing the Government to a mere Confederacy during pleasure; and of thus presenting the extraordinary spectacle of a nation existing only at the will of each of its constituent parts."
Story on the Constitution, vol. I, Book 3, Sec. 321 [page 499]
A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States1868
IMHO, the biggest fear (and misconception) is that the 'United States' would somehow cease to exist just because the membership changes. As long as at least 2 States remain in the collective, it would still be the 'United States'.
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LOL! Sorry for the ramble...I'm kinda a Constitutional junkie. (:-p)
“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. But when the government fears the people, there is freedom.”
That is exactly the way it MUST be.
Whatever it takes even if a major sacrifice must be made we MUST cross the line, they do NOT fear us, they are drunk with power right now, they will have the longest strongest hangover very soon.
Contact the Tea Party. Organize peaceful protest marches. Locate and organize conservatives in your area to protest Obama's illigal "re-election". Contact your state legislators to formally petition to secede and organize petition drives to get let them know that their voters are serious.
That's for starters and should keep you busy for a day or two.
Yo left off the "/sarc" at the end of your post.
BTW, John Hancock was one of those who lost BOTH his life AND his fortune securing this country as a free nation from Britain.
It will take a war to secede from the Union and what about the nukes?
Let those states that wish to leave secede from the United States
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/228/644/059/let-those-states-that-wish-to-leave-seceed-from-the-united-states/
Sez you?
Seems as if these petitioners don’t care at all about the bloody or final sacrifices of our U.S. military Veterans, to protect our American freedoms and way of life, our unity, and our willingness to stand against the tyrants who threaten them. So says the Declaration of Independence, so is denied by these petitioners.
On the contrary. It's the right of free political speech.
I am not worried about nukes, but it will definitely get ugly. This could get really interesting. All it takes is a few legislatures with the cojones to take a vote.
Let California, Illinois, New York, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Washington, and all the other loon-dominated states worry about their insane social issues while they spend themselves into oblivion. Without secession, the semi-sentient states will end up with all the insane social policy and all the debt from those states.
Secession now seems far-fetched, but the fuse on the debt-bomb has been lit, and the certain explosion could make it happen.
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